Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for effectively wirelessly recharging an electric vehicle using visible light communication and a vehicle capable of carrying out the same.
Discussion of the Related Art
A wireless recharging system for an electric vehicle is a system for recharging a battery of a vehicle without requiring cable connection under the condition that the vehicle is parked at a particular location. Such a wireless recharging system uses an electromagnetic induction method using coils or a method using resonance. In this case, however, the distance between the coil of the electric vehicle and the coil of the charger should be within a certain range in order to enable recharging of the electric vehicle using the above-mentioned method. When the electric vehicle moves outside of the range, recharging efficiency may be abruptly reduced and, as such, an excessive financial burden may be imposed on the user, as compared to the amount of recharge.
Currently, there is no wireless recharging system commercially available for electric vehicles although such a wireless recharging system is being developed by some companies. In order to eliminate problems obstructing commercial availability of such a wireless recharging system, it is necessary to secure desired wireless recharging efficiency, and to complement a charger retrieval procedure for communication with a charger to execute wireless recharge. Although the charger retrieval procedure should be necessarily executed for exchange of billing information, there is a problem in that, when there is a plurality of wireless chargers, to simultaneously recharging a plurality of vehicles, it is difficult for each vehicle to designate a corresponding one of the wireless chargers to supply electric power thereto through general wireless connection in order to automatically connect the corresponding wireless charger thereto.
Such a problem will be described with reference to FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a view explaining a problem occurring when a plurality of electric vehicles is simultaneously recharged in a wireless manner.
Referring to FIG. 1(A), in a wired recharging system, an electric vehicle 110 is connected to a charger 120 via a power line in a wired manner. In this case, the possibility of mismatch between the vehicle 110 and the charger 120 in setting of a recharging amount and exchange of billing information is very low because communication between the vehicle 110 and the charger 120 can be achieved through power line communication (PLC).
However, there may be a situation that two vehicles 110A and 110b are simultaneously recharged in a wireless manner in a recharging station provided with a plurality of wireless chargers 131, 132, and 133, as shown in FIG. 1(B). In this case, it may be assumed that electric power is supplied to the left vehicle 110A through the left charger 131 while being supplied to the right vehicle 110B through the right charger 133 under the condition that there is no physical connection between the corresponding vehicle and charger. In this regard, setting of a recharging amount and exchange of billing information must also be carried out in a wireless manner. However, when charger-and-vehicle connection is simply achieved based on intensities of wireless signals, there may be an occasion that the left vehicle 110A is wirelessly connected to the right charger 133, and the right vehicle 110B is wirelessly connected to the left charger 131 and, as such, billing information may be mistaken between the two chargers. For this reason, correct charger retrieval is required.